Forgotten choices
by Lanny-Sama
Summary: Choices are made in split seconds, and all of them build the path to their consequences. - After a fiery battle in the pits, Megatron heads to his berth, only to make a rather shocking discovery...


**Author's note: A possible trigger is present. Please scroll to the bottom to see what it is. **

Megatron left the arena with his processor still buzzing from battle. The mechs on the tribunes were still cheering and their unified roar lingered like white noise in his audials.  
>A medic approached him and Megatron sat to allow the mech to repair him, thought to an outsider's perspective it might have looked as if his legs had given out just as he prepared to sit. Megatron's sensor-array was sending previously suppressed shots of white hot pain down his frame, and his processor was clearing as the euphoria of victory faded.<p>

Megatron offlined his optics and let the medic repair him. His opponent had been a shuttle. Ugly camouflage paint, unbuffed scarring from previous battles and a surprising amount of skill with his dual blades. It hadn't been an easy win, but it had been a satisfying one. Flyers were usually far too easy to take out, a simple punishing grip on the delicate flaps in their wings and they were out for the count. The shuttle had had his wings long removed or destroyed, and even taking his dual blades from him hadn't been enough to slow the mech down. The shuttle had simply fallen back to the simple art of fist fighting.

The mech had been skilled as well. Megatron had felt his inner systems jostle as one of the punches had hit him in the abdomen. He had responded in kind by slamming his pointed elbow into the opening between the mech's head and torso. The grappling in the dirt had only lasted a few clicks before he had triumphed.

The medic's welding tool shut off, and he tapped on Megatron's shoulder to signal that he was done.  
>"Usual stuff. Drink energon, recharge, don't move the bits that hurt. The rest of your repairs'll be done tomorrow." The medic pushed at him and Megatron lurched to his feet. His place was immediately taken by a deliriously gasping truck-mech who looked distinctively dismembered, and was holding his own leg in a death grip.<p>

Megatron walked down the claustrophobic halls, and past a softly whimpering mech sitting in a corner. His frame was covered with someone else's energon. Megatron narrowed his optics at the gladiator's stricken expression. What kind of mech would choose to do such extreme things and then allow petty guilt to consume him afterwards?  
>Megatron knew all about making sacrifices. Life simply couldn't be lived without inflicting pain, or receiving pain. Once you had a grasp of that truth, it was a simple matter of making the choices that would hurt you the least in the long run.<p>

Megatron headed towards the recharge quarters, and passed the communal shower-room with a passing glance. There were paint-flakes going down the drain.  
>Of course, it is impossible to know which choice gives the least pain, before you've made it. Megatron still remembered the first time he killed another bot. A moment in which he had to decide what would be worse; a life outside of the mines with the burden of a murderer on his shoulders, or a lifetime inside the mines, forever wondering if things could have turned out differently.<p>

Megatron lumbered through the intricate maze of the Pits, and ignored the stings of his repairing wounds. His shoulder burned, and Megatron knew that there would be no writing that night, not if he wanted to survive his next battle in the Pits. Finally, Megatron reached the gladiator sleeping quarters, and he made his way over to the metal plate that covered the door-opening to his quarters. Megatron dragged it aside, and squeezed his frame through the doorway into the small cubicle that served as his private quarters. He set his door back in place, and dropped on his berth.

He crossed one arm over his spark and watched shadows move on the grimy ceiling. Other gladiators were only a single sheet of metal away from him, and he listened stoically to the agitated grunts of his next-next door neighbours interfacing wildly. Never a dull night.

Megatron let the sounds wash over him, dulled by the thin plating of his walls, and his recharge protocols cycled up, slowly offlining the active systems in his frame, pain and awareness fading-

A throb of pain in his abdomen had Megatron's recharge protocols snapping offline and Megatron growled. Afterdamage was a pain, and not in a joking manner. System components that had been jarred loose were always left to self-repair, and Megatron had stopped counting the amount of times where a jostled fuel tank had kept him from recharging.  
>Megatron did a lackluster check of his systems, but the damage was non-threatening. No leaks or lacerations, just a set of dented components and interrupted protocols. Megatron grunted in annoyance, and forcefully cycled up his recharge protocols.<p>

Another aching throb of pain jolted his systems online and Megatron was about to force his systems into an immediate shutdown when something inside of him shifted with an alarming clunk.  
>He lurched off his berth and hot fluids spilled down his thighs as he stood. His pedes shook as he strode for the door-<p>

Something uneven and sharp abruptly slid down his valve and Megatron spread his legs just in time for the mass to tear past the rim and clatter to the ground with a wet metallic sound. A near tank-worth of thin energon-stained lubricants splattered out after it.

Megatron stared down uncomprehendingly. A small grey lump of plating laid in between his feet, and his processors worked furiously to understand what had just fallen out of him. It was not a vital organ, nor anything that could come from a wound. Not loose circuitry- a part of outer armour?  
>The world was slowly coming back into focus. The loud moaning from the interfacing mechs sounded clearly over his own laboured vents and Megatron felt more liquid dripping down his thighs.<p>

Megatron bent forward and picked the thing off the ground. It seemed to fold open as he lifted it up, and Megatron focused his optics to see better in the scarce light. Tiny limbs were glistening lubricants, and a small helm was hanging limp from a thin grey frame. A sparkling. Megatron vented harshly and cycled his optics.

The sparkchamber was open and unprotected, and there was only empty space where a spark should have been. The optics had almost been finished, but in the dim light it was impossible to see their colour. Bare struts showed where the construction nanites had not started to build its armour.

Megatron stared at the sparkling, and then down his legs where unused protometal was pooling. The plating on his abdomen where the shuttle's fist had landed was aching, and Megatron's vents shuttered. It had been alive. The protometal dripping from his valve was proof to that.

It had been that savage punch to his abdomen that forced the sparkling out.

Megatron stood in the middle of his tiny quarters and tried to think. The interfacing mechs were reaching their climax and one of them howled like a mechanimal. Slowly, Megatron walked to his berth, and sat down on the edge. The limp frame of the sparkling was heavy in his hands, as if his strength had been sapped from him.

He stared at the offline little form for longer than was healthy. His shoulder ached. This would be an example, he thought, of not knowing what kind of pain a decision would bring. Countless choices, countless little things had all led to this moment. If he had chosen not to throw his blade- to give the shuttle a fair fight – to give the spectators a show... If he had chosen to end it right there and then, it would have lived.

Megatron stroked a finger over the grey metal plating of a half finished faceplate, and he held the lump of metal a little closer to his chassis. Guilt and shame - those useless emotions- were creeping up on him, and Megatron felt as if his intake was clogging.

"I made my choices." He said, and his voice was a raspy whisper. If only he could know what their consequences would be before he acted.

Megatron forced himself to lie down on his berth. It was wet with protometal, but he did not move to clean it. Instead he cradled the dead form closer to his chestplates and tried to cycle into recharge.

The image of the crying gladiator sitting in a forgotten corner of the hallways ran by him again, and he shook his head to himself. He was not one to linger in weakness. He was not one to regret a choice once it'd become permanent.  
>Tomorrow, Megatron would clean up the protometal, and get himself a cube of energon. On his way to the medbay, he would pass by the waste disposal, and drop off a neat, compressed cube. Then, life would continue, with or without his regret and sorrow.<p>

Megatron folded his hands around the cooling clump of metal in his embrace, and forced his optics offline. His spark squeezed in on itself with pain, and for a few moments, Megatron indulged. Useless guilt pressed down on him like the stone of the mines he had worked in before, and Megatron held the tiny offline frame as if it had truly mattered.

BREAK

The Nemesis was a ship worthy of its name, and the Captain's quarters were almost as impressive and great as the ship itself.  
>Megatron had little use for endless space that the quarters provided, and the many shelves and cupboards were only stocked with battleplans and old written works that he had not touched since the war had started.<p>

The only personal thing in the warlord's quarters, was a small opaque waste-box, long forgotten and worn with age. Similar to the box of unpublished work, it went wherever Megatron did, gathering dust as the war raged on.

**Possible trigger; miscarriage. **


End file.
